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“Kolya… what’s going to happen with Angela?”
I clear my throat. “There’s a community of women who have something of a rehabilitation center out west. For people who have suffered like Angela has. Milana will place her there for the time being. Once she’s back on her feet, we’ll help her get a job, an apartment, and an alias if she wants one.”
June smiles sadly. “You’ve done this before.”
“More often than I’d like.”
She runs her finger down the bridge of my nose. “You’re a good man, Kolya Uvarov.”
“Bite your tongue.”
She laughs, and the sound sends this strange, giddy thrill straight through my metal heart. “I don’t feel guilty anymore,” she says, her voice crackling in the silence. “Do you?”
“I never did.”
“I never felt safe with Adrian,” she admits quietly, her smile fading as she speaks. “I was with him for years and I never felt like he was truly mine. And after The Accident… losing the baby… my life with him just felt off-kilter. I guess, in a way, I was waiting for us to break.”
She’s so lost in her thoughts that she probably doesn’t notice how stiff I’ve become in her arms.
The Accident.
The one secret I’ve yet to tell her. The one she most deserves to know.
“I don’t feel that way with you, Kolya,” she murmurs. “I feel safe. Whole.”
I have to fucking tell her. She’s going to see my scars eventually. And when she does, she’s going to ask questions. Questions with answers that can only break her heart.
“I love you, Kolya,” she whispers to me. “In a way I’ve never loved any other man.”
Fucking tell her. Tell her, you coward. Tell her, tell her, tell her.
“June…”
“And I want the wedding to be real.”
I pull myself up on my elbow to look down at her. “Excuse me?”
She nods, tears glistening like sapphires in the corners of her eyes. “I don’t want a fake wedding, Kolya. You and me… This isn’t fake. So why should our wedding be?”
And just like that, I decide that our future is more important than my past. Telling her now would only break her heart, and now that she’s given her heart to me, I have to protect it.
No matter what it costs.
48
JUNE
“It’s not too late, you know. I can cause a distraction and you can get the hell out of here.”
I turn to my sister with my eyebrows knitted together. “Another runaway bride joke. How original.”
Geneva crosses her arms. “What makes you think I’m joking?”
I sigh and walk over to the bagged gown laid out on the bed of my hotel suite. “Shouldn’t you be changing into your bridesmaid’s dress?” I ask as I unzip it to reveal the shimmering opal fabric.
“Fine,” she snaps irritably. “I’ll go change now.”
She heads into the bathroom, and I revel in the silence. The suite has been bustling since the moment we arrived three or four hours ago. There was the makeup team, the hair team, plus Anette and her many clipboard-bearing minions.
